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Friday, January 4, 2013

Medal of Honor: Warfighter Review

So, I had to write this review in the light of how terribly wrong pretty much every critic out there is. I generally respect IGN's reviews of games. They're usually a bit hard on games, but they're usually equally hard on games, so they do tend to be fair. My review of the first game in the reboot pretty much agrees with IGN's review. But IGN's review of Warfighter, while bringing up some legitimate problems, doesn't accurately reflect what kind of game it truly is.

First, to acknowledge the issues people have raised against this game: Yes, there does seem to be some framerate issues here and there. Though it's more something you see after playing the game a while, not something so bad that it disrupts gameplay. Graphically for the most part, it's on par with Battlefield 3. Yes, the campaign does over-use breaching. It doesn't feel exactly annoying, just pointless. Yes, the campaign doesn't introduce anything that hasn't been done in other games (though that's usually the case, and when they do e.g. Bulletstorm, they're not usually received well). Yes, enemies aren't the sharpest knives in the box, and could make better use of cover and work together as a team better. I'd add that it's frustrating to see them run past the rest of your team, to target you specifically. This makes no tactical sense and is the same lame AI they used in the 2010 title. They aren't the only series to do this, but boy is it annoying. Some have complained about the story as well. I thought it wasn't exactly an exciting plot, but it does tell the story fairly well. Complainers are advised to note that it's been some time before we've had good storytelling in a shooter, and no one buys shooters for their storyline anyway. And finally, yes, the menu system is confusing at first. But once you get used to it, it's actually rather nice.

As far as weapon design (something I've not really heard anyone comment on), the weapons seem to have less recoil than they ought, and all sound suppressed, but the damage is more realistic (or at leat the bullet tracking seems to work better) than games like Call of Duty, particularly with headshots (though in my opinion it could be cranked up even further). Actually, the weapons are more responsive and damaging than Battlefield 3 as well, and I have far fewer latency issues than I do in Call of Duty. There are also some cool animations in multiplayer, like rappelling out of a Blackhawk spawn point, cutting wires as you deactivate explosives placed by opposing players, throwing a UAV to deploy it, sliding or diving into cover, and great takedown sequences when you melee with the tomahawk. The multi-nation features they've added, like the ability to play as different nations an apply tokens towards different nations' victory are a nice touch. I do agree with those that say the nations feature needs adjusted. Since it is scored by # of tokens / # of contributing players, countries that have only a few big contributors beat out nations with more massive amounts of tokens because there are also more players contributing. This has lead to Portugal being the victor each of the first 3 seasons. The absolute biggest thing Warfighter has going for it is the buddy system. The buddy system lets you can get health and ammo from your buddy, points for your buddy spawning on you, for saving or avenging your buddy, for being close to your buddy while he makes kills. Speaking of the fact it's a he, why are there no female fighters in the game? It's unfathomable to me how critics can knock this game for not having made any innovations, when they've added this really fun and effective mechanic. Then go on to say "This is not the shooter you expected" about Black Ops 2, of which the only new thing is the strike force missions with their overhead tactical operations (something that is neat to see, but not something I care to play), everything else about it is really a tweak of what they've been doing the last several years, and the engine hasn't been touched at all. I loved Modern Warfare 2, and Call of Duty is still a solid series (and offers more types of multiplayer), but I feel like they have to do more to deserve remaining the top shooter out there, and in my opinion (having bought both games), I feel Warfighter is actually the better game and the one I spend most of my time in these days. It's not as realistic as the Battlefield series (Bad Company 2 having more realistic destruction in my opinion), but I'm finding it more fun for some reason.